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Glenn Greenwald: NSA Believes It Should Be Able To Monitor All Communication

Monday, May 12, 2014

Glenn Greenwald in April, arriving in the U.S. for the first time since documents were disclosed to him by former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden.
(Stan Honda / AFP/Getty Images)

Glenn Greenwald, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who helped to break stories about mass surveillance in the United States, is making more revelations in a new book coming out Tuesday.

In an interview with NPR's Morning Edition, Greenwald says one of the more "shocking" things he's found is that the National Security Agency physically intercepted shipments of computer hardware, like routers, switches and servers, to outfit them with surveillance equipment.

Once they were done, they repackaged the hardware with "factory sealing" and sent it on its way to unsuspecting companies.

Greenwald says that for years, the United States has been warning global companies about buying Chinese products because they could be outfitted with surveillance hardware. This revelation, Greenwald says, exposes "an extreme form of gross hypocrisy" on the part of the U.S. government.

Greenwald says he doesn't expect Congress to reform the NSA. But this is different, he says. Back in 2005, the story was national. Today, the story is about the U.S. domination of the Internet, which makes it a global issue.

When you have friendly countries like Germany, France and Brazil and big companies like Facebook protesting mass surveillance, things might just change, Greenwald says.

Much more of Greenwald's conversation with Steve will be on Monday's Morning Edition. Click here for your local NPR member station. We'll add the as-aired version of the interview later this morning.

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